


Rabbit Fever

by moolktea



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Animal Transformation, Crack, Creampie, DNA (destroy nero's ass), First Time, Fluff, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Overstimulation, belly bulge, nero propaganda, the E rating is for chapter 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-03-17 09:09:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18962206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moolktea/pseuds/moolktea
Summary: On a mission gone more than a little wrong, Dante finds himself faced with a very furry problem.Or, in which Nero is a rabbit, Dante has no self-control, and the office desk shows off its multipurpose utility.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OK......U ASKED FOR IT......NERO PROPAGANDA AT ITS VERY PEAK, it does NOT GET MORE PROPAGANDA THAN THIS  
> this is extremely self indulgent, fluffy in chap 1, horny in chapter 2, rabbits everywhere, thank u  
> alternate title is "making like rabbits" courtesy of kitty, who the ANTI CHEESE propaganda that can be found in this fic is directed at  
> ty 2 luna for validating my irrational need to make nero increasingly microscopic  
> i dedicate this fic to the entirety of dn twitter but especially Lady (the progenitor of nero rabbit propaganda)

The fluffiest problem that Dante has ever encountered in his long and less-than-illustrious career as a Devil Hunter starts out in a fairly routine job for him and Nero.

The creature screeches sharply at them as they corner it, and desperation is clearly written across its ugly demonic face. 

Nero winces at the grating sound, pressing his free hand against his ear, his left hand tightening around Red Queen.

“Can we just finish this already?” Nero demands, a little snappier than usual, glaring at Dante through his tired blue eyes.

Dante can’t really blame him--he’d been the one to drag Nero out of the kid’s afternoon nap and out on this job, and while he didn’t really  _ need  _ Nero to be here, he can’t lie to himself. He likes the kid’s presence, whether the boy actually helps him combat-wise or not, and the more time he gets to spend with Nero and his incredibly fluffy, messy hair, the better.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dante answers lightly, hoisting Rebellion over his shoulders. “Hey, don’t forget--you work for me now, kid. I’m the one who gives the orders here.”

Nero rolls his eyes, pulling up his scarf around his mouth in evident disgust, bowing his head to Dante in mock submission. 

“Sure, grandpa. You’ve definitely got  _ seniority _ , after all.”

Dante considers giving the kid a healthy, light smack on the back of the head, and not just because he gleefully takes any opportunity he can to feel Nero’s soft hair. But the kid’s probably right that they’ve spent enough time here. Besides, Nero’s current state of lethargy is mostly Dante’s fault, since Dante had dragged the boy to come fuck around in town with him for the entirety of last night.

“Well, alright then,” Dante begins, then tilts his sword towards the demon.

Of course, perhaps to punish Dante for his actions, or maybe because Lady Luck is still pissed at him for all the times he’s defied death in one egregious manner or another, the demon chooses  _ now  _ to react, curling in on itself and convulsing with some sort of crackling electricity.

“Oh, fuck--” he hears to his right, and before Dante can stop the kid, Nero is lunging forward, Red Queen extended, in an attempt to decapitate the demon before it can do whatever it’s about to do.

“Nero,  _ wait!” _

The second the blade of Nero’s sword touches the demon’s body, there’s a second where time seems to freeze, with Nero glaring angrily at the demon, and Dante still standing there, his hand uselessly extended towards the kid, before the two forces react.

Violently so, actually.

Dante groans as he sits up, every muscle in his body aching from where he’d been promptly smashed into the concrete ground by a wave of... _ something _ , energy sparking around him as his demonic half rushes to heal his injuries. Using his sword as a crutch of sorts, he somewhat unsteadily gets to his feet, his bruises disappearing from his skin and the scrapes on his back closing themselves up.

The air is oddly quiet, a fact that has the hair on the back of Dante’s neck prickling with alarm. Not only is the area free of demonic screeching, it also lacks any sort of the angry, irritated cursing and scathing remarks about his age that he’s grown quite fond of over the weeks.

“Uh, kid?” Dante calls hesitantly, looking around himself. 

The demon is gone, probably having fled for its life after that final attack, but so is Nero. 

“Shit,” Dante mutters to himself, returning Rebellion to his back and stumbling slowly back over to the location of the initial blast. 

There’s a scorch mark on the ground, a black ring of ash seared onto the cracked concrete, and in the middle of it is a red and navy blue pile of very familiar looking clothes and a sword, wedged blade first into the ground.

Dante’s heart drops somewhere near around his boots as he looks at the remains of what could possibly be Nero, and when he reaches down, kneeling against the ground, he realizes that his own hands are trembling.

“...Nero?” He whispers, unsure of what sort of response he’s even expecting.

There’s an incredibly logical answer for what’s happened here. The kid is more human than demon, after all, has a much slower healing factor than Dante himself has, and is a lot younger and smaller than he is. He was closer to the monster, too, in front of Dante, even. The power that threw Dante back, hard enough to turn the concrete underneath him into rubble, might have even been enough to…

“Nero,” he says again, this time more firmly, because he’s already been through this before, has staggered up to the ruins of rubble and ash and looked for something that he should have known wasn’t there.

There’s a terrible moment of nothing, at first, and Dante lowers his head, his hand dropping down against the concrete, his breaths turning painful in his suddenly aching lungs, when, so quietly that he thinks he might have imagined it, the bundle of clothes...squeaks.

Dante watches in something like mingled hope and amazement as a very tiny lump shifts underneath the fabric, before a very small head, accompanied by a pair of floppy looking ears pokes out from underneath the hemline of Nero’s hoodie.

Very slowly, in a slightly stilted motion, like one of its legs is injured, the white rabbit that’s emerged from Nero’s clothing hops forward, tilting its tiny head and looking up at Dante with narrowed eyes, nose twitching.

Dante lets out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding, flattening his palms against the concrete as he leans over, trying to get a closer look at the thing.

“Kid, is that...you?”

The rabbit answers with an irritated sounding squeak, as if the answer should be obvious, then nearly jumps in surprise, lifting its incredibly tiny paws off of the ground and examining each of them in turn. The squeaking noises turn somewhat panicked, as the rabbit twists around, looking directly at its fluffy, round tail.

Dante watches as the rabbit inspects itself in squeaky horror for a good ten seconds in shock, before doubling over, wrapping an arm around his stomach as he laughs. He feels a little bad for Nero, sure, but the sheer relief he feels at knowing that Nero wasn’t  _ dead  _ is going to his head in a dizzying rush. 

Besides, the situation was just inherently funny--the angry, hissy, bratty demon-hunting kid that he’s taken under his wing, now in the form of an absolutely adorable baby bunny.

When Dante finally composes himself, wiping the tears from the corner of his eyes, Nero is sitting on the ground, looking up at him with the most withering expression his adorable rabbit face can muster. He’s apparently accepted his newfound rabbit identity with surprising speed, and is now clearly waiting for Dante to get his shit together.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Dante begins, but can’t help but snort when Nero’s glare turns into something like a pout, his tail twitching furiously. “Look, uh...let’s not stay here, I guess. You need...what? A carrot?”

He receives a growl in return, and Nero thumps his paws angrily against the concrete. Unfortunately, the threatening effect is seriously undermined by his adorable appearance, and Dante is forced to choke back another peal of laughter as he holds his hands out to Nero, smiling gently down at the kid.

“Think you can...hop over here? Your leg doesn’t look too good, and I’m pretty sure I’d cover a lot more ground than you can.”

Nero seems content to glare at him for a while longer, and Dante can almost hear the kid’s voice in his mind, going on about how he doesn’t need Dante’s help. Dante waits patiently, though, because Nero is pretty sensible underneath his impulsive pride and his short temper, and eventually, the kid seems to realize that Dante is right.

He very slowly hops over, his twitching nose brushing against the palm of Dante’s hands as he carefully settles his tiny, fluffy body in Dante’s hold. 

Dante stands up very delicately, feeling the way that Nero freezes against his hands, trembling slightly as he looks down at the ground underneath them, and Dante gets the impression that Nero is having a little difficulty adjusting to how small he is in comparison to the rest of the world.

Nero must feel desperately out of control, forced to rely on Dante to carry him at a height that would likely break all of his bones if Nero were to fall now. 

“Hey, don’t look down, kid,” Dante attempts to reassure Nero, bringing him close to his chest so that Nero won’t have to see how high up from the ground he is.

Nero is tiny enough to fit in one of his hands, and Dante carefully adjusts him so that he can give Nero a reassuring pat, running his hand gently down from the top of the rabbit’s head, until he feels Nero’s trembles subside.

“I’ve got you, okay? Trust me on this?”

Nero gives a very quiet, answering squeak in return, then buries his face in the folds of Dante’s shirt, doing his best to relax against Dante’s hand.

Dante has to admit, the gesture is awfully heartwarming, and he laughs again, more gently this time, giving Nero one last pet before he picks up the pile of Nero’s clothes and puts Red Queen on his back, stuffing Blue Rose into a spare holster. Luckily, the kid wasn’t carrying much on him, save for a small pendant, which Nero tries to point out to him through extensive squeaking and pawing.

Dante gets the message, picking up the necklace and putting it in the same hand that he’s holding Nero with, letting the kid keep it between his tiny paws. Nero takes it, wrapping it up and tucking it under his head, his floppy ears falling forward and tickling Dante’s skin.

Nero is unfairly cute like this--Dante’s going to have some difficulty surviving through the rest of Nero’s time as a rabbit without having at least one mildly uncharacteristic adoration session. 

With all of Nero’s possessions safely recovered, he heads back to the shop, making sure not to jostle the bundle in his hands too much. He’s never been this careful with his movements before, but he’d rather not freak Nero out any more than absolutely necessary, especially not with the way Nero’s back leg injury doesn’t seem to be healing up any time soon.

His accelerated healing was disabled in rabbit form, it seemed, something that worries Dante more than he wants to let on.

Trish and Lady are sitting on his desk, idly eating pizza when he comes through the door, and it takes them a half a second of blank staring at the bunny in his arms before they start towards him.

“Dante, what the hell? You got a pet?” Lady demands, her hands on her hips. “You’re still in debt to me, remember that!”

“Hey, where’s Nero?” Trish muses, looking around. “Doesn’t he always follow you around like some sort of baby duckling?”

Nero squeaks angrily at the comment, poking his head out again to look at the two girls, but Dante can’t help but notice that way that Nero is inching back against him, pressing himself up closer to Dante’s body. Nero’s certainly used to the ladies in human form, but it’s definitely different when he’s only a little bigger than the size of their hands.

“Woah there,” Dante says placatingly, taking a step away from the two women. “Not so close.” 

He instinctively curves his free hand around Nero, putting up some kind of physical shield between the kid and the overwhelming rest of the world. 

“This, uh...this is him,” Dante tries to explain, glancing between the rabbit and his two oldest friends, who exchange looks of disbelief. He’s not surprised they don’t believe him, especially considering that they weren’t there to witness the demon that did this. They hadn’t even known he was out on a job today.

“Dante, that’s a rabbit,” Lady says carefully, and he notices her clearly trying to look into his pupils for some form dilation to indicate the presence of a head injury.

“Well, yeah, he is  _ now _ . Dunno what happened, really. One second we were about to send this ugly demon bastard back home, and the next, Nero was like...this.”

Lady and Trish continue to look skeptical, which is probably Dante’s fault, considering the rather lacking substance of his explanation, but he’s really not sure how to put in a way that won’t make him sound like he’s trying to fuck with them.

He looks back down at Nero, tapping gently at the bunny’s side to get his attention, and Nero tilts his small head up, his nose twitching intently.

“You, uh...you feel like helping me out? If you’re feeling uncomfortable, you don’t have to. But I don’t think the girls are gonna believe me.”

Nero pauses, evidently in thought, before he slowly nods, and Dante gives him an appreciative smile, walking over to the desk and gently setting Nero down on top of it. He lounges back in his own chair, but keeps his hands on the desk where Nero can see them, a silent reassurance that he’ll catch the kid if he falls.

“Ask him yourself. You can check him out, too, if you get his permission. Though his leg is kinda messed up right now, so be careful around there.”

He knows that Nero doesn’t need his protection--the kid has definitely yelled the phrase at him in some form or another several times during their time together, but it’s ridiculously difficult for Dante to accept it. Even when the kid isn’t a tiny and puffy baby rabbit, and is his normal, feisty, sword-wielding self who can easily toss around demons ten times his size with his spectral devil bringer, Dante’s never quite been able to squash the urge to shield Nero from harm.

Dante hasn’t figured his feelings out just yet, but it’s abundantly clear to him that Nero has a special place in his heart, maybe even right next to where Dante keeps his feelings about his brother.

Lady and Trish seem to pick up on Dante’s protectiveness and approach Nero slowly.

“So that’s really you, then?” Trish inquires carefully, unable to suppress the smile that’s spreading across her face. 

Nero nods almost shyly, ducking his tiny head and swiping a very small paw over his face, reminiscent of the usual way he’d avert his gaze and wipe at his nose when he was embarrassed.

Lady and Trish look at each other again, this time with something much softer on their faces, and Dante suspects that they, too, have fallen prey to the irresistible pull of rabbit-Nero’s cuteness.

“Never seen anything like it,” Dante muses, leaning forward, his forearms pressed against the desk, watching in amusement as Nero instinctively squirms closer to him, pressing his fluffy body up against the length of Dante’s wrist. “Pretty sure the kid will turn back if we go kill the demon that did this, but...we gotta find him, first.”

“So, what, you’re just going to keep him here until you kill the demon?” Lady asks, looking at him rather dubiously, and Dante feels a little defensive, gently petting Nero’s head. 

The kid’s always been embarrassed by Dante ruffling his hair or pushing other forms of physical affection onto him, but rabbit-Nero doesn’t seem to mind this as much, his ears and tail twitching happily as he leans into Dante’s touch.

“Seems that way. I mean, there’s not much else of a choice. Besides, the kid loves me.”

Nero stiffens immediately, jerking away from his touch and smacking a paw against his arm with as much force as he can possibly muster, which is unfortunately rather minuscule. Dante looks down at him, not bothering to hide his fond smile at Nero’s actions.

“Ouch,” he says indulgently, causing Nero’s wide rabbit eyes to narrow at him.

“Do you even know how to take care of a rabbit?” Trish continues, and Dante shrugs, because no, he does not. 

“Uh...I can figure it out. Maybe. Nero will help me out, anyway. If I fuck something up, I’m sure he’ll squeak at me to let me know.”

Nero squeaks at him indignantly, helpfully proving Dante’s point.

“Right...let’s hope you don’t kill him before the day ends,” Lady mutters under her breath.

“Hey, Nero’s a tough kid. Don’t underestimate him, even if he is more than a bit on the small side right now. Anyway…”

Dante opens up his side drawer, rooting around for supplies.

“Since I’m gonna be bunnysitting for the foreseeable future, I’m probably gonna have to sit this one out. You two mind taking over the job for me? You can take the pay, I won’t mind.”

Lady and Trish blink incredulously at him as he extricates a roll of bandages and a very small cloth, putting them both on the table before ducking back down to look for some sort of disinfectant. It’s a miracle that he has either of the first two things at all, considering how all of his injuries healed on their own, but ever since Nero had come around to stay with him, the kid had been stocking up on all sorts of supplies.

“Hold on,  _ you’re _ giving up a job just like that?”

Dante shrugs, making a small noise of satisfaction as he finds what he needs.

“I mean, the demon won’t be back to bother the client anytime soon, Nero definitely made sure of that. I think the kid requires a lot more of my attention now, though, so I’m leaving it up to you two, if you feel up for it.”

Admittedly, Dante is just overwhelmingly reluctant to leave Nero alone. Being separated from the boy’s presence was difficult enough when the kid was still in his original form, but now, with Nero looking like...this, Dante needs to be near Nero at all times. His mind keeps conjuring up unfortunate, horrifying images of Nero falling off of the edge of the desk or cutting one of his tiny paws against Dante’s expansive collection of weaponry. 

Nero squeaks at him, probably trying to tell him that he’d be fine without Dante’s help, but Dante shakes his head, starting to take off his coat, bundling it up and putting it on the desk near the rabbit. 

“We should fix up your leg, kid. Can’t be too comfortable laying on this desk, so feel free to hop on.” 

When the bunny continues to hesitate, Dante adds in Nero’s soft scarf to the makeshift nest on the table, fluffing it up for good measure. 

Nero still doesn’t move, and Dante frowns.

“What’s wrong?”

Nero looks between him and the pile of clothes, before swiping his paw over his face again and slowly hopping forward, nudging with his head at the crook of Dante’s elbow, now exposed with the absence of his coat. The rabbit repeats the motion about two times, then looks up at him expectantly.

“Oh, well, yeah, it’s my coat. But I think you need it more than I do right now, anyway. Besides, I’m entrusting it to you.”

“You  _ understand  _ him?” Trish interrupts, and Dante flicks his gaze upwards, offering her a lazy shrug.

“He’s still Nero, rabbit or not. Pretty easy to tell what the kid wants to say.”

He turns his attention back to attempting to persuade Nero to hop over to the pile of clothes, which, after some more prodding, both physical and verbal, the kid does.

Nero seems happy enough with his new surroundings, from what Dante can tell, because the kid keeps making these little clicking noises that Dante isn’t sure are entirely voluntary, gently pawing at the folds of Dante’s coat. When Dante smiles and pets Nero again in response, the noises grow just a little louder, Nero’s floppy ears twitching with the movement.

Lady and Trish have spent so long staring at him that Dante is starting to get a little concerned, pausing mid-pet to look up at the two of them, raising an eyebrow.

“What?”

“...We’ll take the job,” Trish says automatically, as Lady turns away with a bit more slowness than is entirely necessary, the two of them seemingly reluctant to look away from Dante and rabbit-Nero.

“You two keep having fun,” Lady calls, waving backhandedly at them as she heads out the door, and Trish soon follows after, her heels clicking against the wood of Dante’s floor. The door slams shut behind the two of them, leaving Dante and Nero alone.

Dante allows himself another minute or so of peaceful petting before he leans back against, sliding the bottle of disinfectant into Nero’s view.

“Right, so...your leg. That cut isn’t going to clean itself. You know the drill, kid.” 

Nero eyes the bottle in trepidation, before twisting around to look at his own hind leg, like he’s gauging whether he can get away with just leaving the cut alone.

“Nope,” Dante answers for him. “Sorry, Nero. I know it’ll sting a bit--maybe a lot, considering how tiny you are, but it’s better than letting you get sick, right?”

The look Nero gives him, with his blue eyes wide and his floppy ears drooping sadly against his head, is almost enough to sway Dante. 

Almost.

“I’ll make it quick,” Dante promises, and Nero seems to relent, dropping his head against the fabric of Dante’s coat, shifting so that the leg in question sticks out more than the rest.

With Nero’s nonverbal blessing, Dante pours some of the liquid on the cloth, before very tenderly reaching for Nero’s injured back leg and dabbing the cloth very gently against the wound.

The cut is a lot deeper than he’d thought, and has only barely managed to clot itself, something that strikes Dante with a lot more concern than should be normal. But Nero is so tiny and soft-looking that he can’t help his worry. 

Nero flinches the second that the antiseptic stings at his cut, his ears flat against his head in displeasure and pain, and Dante winces with him, almost stopping his movements entirely.

“Sorry,” he says again, because looking at the way rabbit-Nero trembles underneath him, trying to hide his obvious discomfort makes Dante feel like he’s the worst person on the planet. 

Nero makes a very soft sound at him, patting his front paw against Dante’s coat, which Dante takes as the kid’s sincere attempt to reassure him. He takes it for what it is and finishes cleaning off the rest of Nero’s cut without much incident, before reaching for the bandages.

“These are a little big for you,” he notes contemplatively, measuring the width of the bandage against Nero’s very tiny leg. 

He leans over, wrapping his hand around Rebellion’s hilt and laying his sword across his desk. Nero doesn’t even blink, looking between him and the sword, reaching over to nudge at the flat of the weapon with his paw, like he’s trying to push it back off of the desk.

He’s not very successful, possibly because Rebellion is probably about sixty times Nero’s current weight.

“I know, I know,” Dante says, when Nero gives him an admonishing sort of look. “You keep telling me to use scissors for this kind of thing. But this is just easier, you know?”

Nero continues to look at him with silent disapproval, and Dante is forced to get out of his chair with a sigh, looking through the rest of the downstairs level for the accursed pair of scissors. 

“You happy now?” Dante holds up the scissors for Nero to see when he returns, unraveling a length of bandage from the roll and neatly snipping it off, before cutting it in half, vertically, to reduce its size. 

Nero doesn’t respond outright, but he allows Dante to start wrapping up his leg without protest.

With Nero’s back paw in his hand, Dante is drastically aware of the giant difference in size between Nero and just his hand, and the observation makes him pause in his movements.

“Squeak at me if the bandage is too tight, yeah?”

Nero does not squeak, which Dante takes as a sign to continue, tying off the bandage as tenderly as possible.

“Huh. Did a pretty good job, if you ask me. You think I could make extra cash as one of those animal doctors?”

The kid immediately shakes his head, his ears flopping about with the motion, and Dante can only pretend to look hurt for a second before he finds himself reaching over, petting Nero’s irresistibly soft fur again.

Nero relaxes into the motion, his eyes fluttering shut as he buries his head back into the pile of clothes, one paw reaching out in the general direction of his scarf, but Nero’s tiny bunny limbs are sadly a little too short to reach. Dante helps him along, hooking a finger underneath the article of clothing and dragging it underneath Nero’s paw, so that the kid can arrange it however he wishes.

While Nero is busy making his little bed, Dante snatches up the phone and orders himself a pizza, with the last of the cash he still has. By the time he’s done listing out the topping he wants, Nero is asleep, his tiny nose twitching peacefully as he dreams about whatever Nero or bunnies or Nero-bunnies dreamt about.

Dante folds his arms on the table and drops his head into them, tilting his head up just enough so that he can keep watching Nero. Maybe he’s being creepy, with the way he’s just staring at the kid in his sleep, but watching the slow rise and fall of Nero’s tiny rabbit body is oddly relaxing, somehow. 

He’s asleep before he knows it, waking up only when he feels something very fluffy and soft repeatedly thumping against the top of his head.

“Hm?” He murmurs drowsily, coming eye to eye with Nero’s irritated glare. 

The kid gives him another nudge with his paw, before using his whole head to tap at Dante’s arm, and Dante sits up, rubbing at his eyes, very belatedly registering the knocking at his door.

Right. Pizza.

When he comes back with the box, Nero is waiting patiently for him, his head tilted curiously and his tiny nose twitching as he sniffs the air. Dante cracks open the box and takes his seat in his chair again, eyeing Nero’s reactions.

“What, you want some?” Dante asks, holding out the box to him.

Nero tentatively leans forward, looking at the pizza, but then pushes the box away with his paw, shaking his head.

“Right. Rabbits probably can’t eat cheese. We’ll get you some....well, what do you want, kid?”

Nero twists around, looking in the general direction of Dante’s kitchen, and Dante sets the box down.

“I’m going to pick you up, okay?” He warns Nero, to avoid alarming the kid, and Nero hops forward, moving closer to him so that Dante can scoop him back up in his arms. Before he stands up, though, he tugs Nero’s scarf from the pile and wraps him up in it, much the kid’s confusion.

He takes Nero to the kitchen, popping open the fridge and holding Nero out closer to the food, the scarf protecting the rabbit’s tiny body from getting cold.

“Just point at whatever looks good, I guess.”

Dante’s fridge being full was really only a regular thing after Nero had moved in with him. For some reason or another, the kid had refused to eat pizza for every single meal, for every single day of his life, and had offered to use most of his cut of the pay they got from jobs to fill up the kitchen with groceries. 

Of course, Dante had felt bad about it, so he’d gone out of his way to give a little extra to the boy for him to use on his food budget, as long as he didn’t have to end up eating any of those vegetables Nero kept bringing home. 

His efforts are sure paying off now, though, because Nero stretches forward, pawing at a plastic tub of dark leaf lettuce. 

“You, uh...you sure about this, kid?” Dante asks, because if it were him having to eat this kind of plain, green vegetable, he’d probably cry. 

Nero, however, looks rather enthusiastic about the vegetables, so Dante sighs, shifting Nero to one hand as he pulls out the container with the other.

“Am I supposed to wash this?” Dante, having never really handled a non-pizza topping vegetable in his life, genuinely isn’t sure, but Nero gives him a flat sort of look in return.

“Oh. You already did? Seems like something you would do. You’re generally on top of this stuff.”

He kicks the fridge door closed with his foot, then brings the lettuce and Nero back to his desk, depositing them both on the surface of the table and offering a leaf out to Nero. The single piece of lettuce is bigger than Nero’s entire body, which is both amusing and adorable to witness, especially as Nero presses his tiny paw down onto the leaf, holding it still while chewing carefully on the vegetable.

With his other hand, Dante takes a slice of pizza for himself, taking bite and watching out of the corner of his eye as Nero takes tiny little nibbles out of the lettuce leaf.

“You know, this isn’t so different from how you normally eat,” Dante observes, and Nero ignores him, either too focused on the lettuce or too disgusted by Dante’s comment to dignify him with a rabbity response.

They eat their dinner together in peace, with Nero very slowly nibbling his way through his single leaf of lettuce and Dante not-so-slowly inhaling the entirety of the large, double cheese pizza, along with every single one of the toppings.

When Dante finishes off the last of the pizza, he breaks the cardboard box down. Then, aiming carefully at the trash can across the room, he attempts to toss it in. It almost makes it, bouncing off of the rim and falling to the floor with a muffled thud.

“Huh. Well, better luck next time, right?”

Nero, previously preoccupied with his lettuce, promptly sits up, giving him the most scandalized glare Dante has ever seen on a rabbit or a human in general, and thumps his paws angrily against the desk.

“Come on, kid. It’s been a long day. Don’t you want to get back to sleep?”

The bunny continues to glare up at him for a second more, but Dante gazes unrelentingly back, unwilling to budge on this particular matter. Nero shakes his head in what might be disgust, and Dante thinks he’s won before the kid hops over to the edge of the desk, like he’s about to jump over and get the pizza box himself. 

Oh  _ no-- _ not on Dante’s watch.

With superhuman speed, Dante practically leaps out of his chair and vaults over to the other side of the desk to stand in front of Nero, gently pushing him back towards the center of the table, where it was nice and safe and had absolutely no chance of Nero falling off of the edge and hurting himself.

“Woah, woah--okay, kid, I’ll clean it up. I promise. You stay right here, okay?”

Nero looks immensely pleased with himself as Dante grudgingly trudges over to the fallen pizza box, properly depositing it into the trash can.

“You’re a quick study,” Dante mutters, as he returns, facing Nero. “You been taking lessons from Lady and Trish on how to get me to do something?”

The kid just hops over to him, bending his head and licking happily at Dante’s palm, and Dante has no choice but to reach over and pet him with his other hand.

Before this, Dante had never quite understood how some pet owners could simply sit and hug their animals for hours on end, but now that Dante finds himself cuddling Nero close to his chest with one hand, and taking sips from a bottle of whiskey with the other, somewhere around midnight, he thinks he might know. 

Nero is just impressively soft and adorably puffy on every part of him, and over the hours, Dante’s quickly found that Nero likes to be pet the most between his ears and sometimes on his sides. The kid is unusually cuddly as a rabbit, either because of his newfound animal instincts or because being something other than himself makes it easier for Nero to open up, both physically and emotionally.

Dante certainly isn’t complaining, though--it’s not just the rabbit form that makes Dante want to hold the kid close, after all. 

Either way, Nero’s presence is relaxing and the bunny is soft, so Dante can hardly be blamed when, in his spell of drowsiness, he brings the bottle of whiskey to his lips and accidentally tilts it a bit too far, splashing some of the liquid on himself.

Nero barely manages to twist out the way, staying thankfully dry, though he does still give Dante an outraged squeak, probably because he’s the one who normally does the laundry.

“Ah, shit,” Dante remarks slowly, looking down at the slowly spreading, wet stain on his shirt. “Hold on a sec.”

He places Nero carefully in his lap, then twists his upper half around to pull off his shirt.

At that moment, exactly two things happen.

The first being the logical conclusion, in which Dante manages to get his shirt off, leaving his entire upper half bare and himself in nothing but his pants. 

The second event presents itself in a blinding flash of white light, forcing Dante to shield his eyes with an arm, and when he looks up, a very naked, very human-shaped Nero is sitting in his lap, his hands pressed against Dante’s exposed chest.

Dante’s eyes drift upwards, to where a pair of floppy, soft looking ears poke out from Nero’s fluffy mop of white hair, then back down to Nero’s face, which seems to have lost all color.

He clears his throat, the sound pervading the awkward silence that has fallen between them.

“Guess the girls managed to wrap things up, huh?”

Nero says nothing, instead staring very hard at where his hands are still touching the muscles of Dante’s chest. Dante can’t say he minds it very much--Nero’s hands are soft against his skin, and, as for the position they’re currently in...well, Dante would be lying if he said he hasn’t dreamt up several similar scenarios a couple of times before.

Out of pure curiosity, combined with much more impure thoughts, Dante shifts forward and cranes his neck, rather pleasantly surprised and impressed when he sees that, along with the ears, Nero has retained his very fluffy tail. It takes a herculean amount of self-control for Dante to restrain himself from reaching out and touching either rabbit appendage, instead forcing himself to keep focusing on Nero’s face.

“You, uh...you alright, kid?”

Nero blinks, as if he’s just registered that Dante is speaking to him. The kid shifts on top of him, like he’s about to speak, but then immediately looks down. He stares at what he sees for an uncomfortably long moment, while Dante does his best to wrack his brain for explanations that don’t involve how thoroughly interested he is in getting his hands on both Nero’s tail and the general area surrounding it.

Then, with speed befitting an actual rabbit, Nero practically springs off of him, fleeing to the side room where the kid generally kept his things. 

“Wait, Nero--”

Before Dante can get another word out, the boy slams door shut behind him, the sound echoing through the thin walls of the shop, leaving Dante alone with his new and decidedly  _ not  _ fluffy problem in his pants.

Well,  _ fuck _ .

Lady Luck’s still got it out for him after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok sorry i lied its 3 chapters, pls direct your blame onto nero for Too Gay crimes  
> real porn in chap 3 but at least u get a semi-rabbit appetizer for now

Nero is having a problem.

He growls at his own reflection in the mirror, staring hard at the long, fluffy ears sticking out from either side of his head. They’re white, like the rest of his hair, and drape downwards, tickling against his neck whenever he turns his head.

With a cautious hand, he swallows hard, instinctively looking around himself in the empty room he’s barricaded himself in before gently touching one of the ears. Out of some sort of involuntary reflex, they twitch in his touch, startling him enough to pull his hand away, biting down on his lip to stifle his yelp of surprise.

They’re attached to his body, sure, but it doesn’t make the fact that he has some very distinctly rabbit properties on him any less fucking weird or alien to him. As far as he can tell, there’s no magical sort of way to get rid of these horrible things. He’s pretty sure that if he snatched up Red Queen and attempted an amateur form of plastic surgery on himself, he’d get the desired results, but he can just feel his ears and tail twitching in trepidation at the thought.

Grimacing slightly, he dares to reach up again, tugging a little harder on the ear. The sensation he receives in return is...not unpleasant, exactly. He feels a faint tingling on the area where the two parts are connected, and a shudder runs involuntarily down his spine, which is enough to make Nero think he should probably leave well enough alone for now.

“Uh, hey, kid?”

Nero sucks in a breath at the sound of Dante’s voice from the other side of the door and doesn’t let it out, twisting his head so that he doesn’t have to see his own face in the mirror. He clenches his fists at his side, trying to work up the nerve to respond, but before he can, Dante clears his throat and continues, sounding more uncertain than Nero’s ever heard him.

“Look, you, uh...you’ve been in there a while. I get it if you don’t really want to come out, all things considered, but I, uh...I’ll just leave this plate here. Got some leftover pizza and all that good stuff.”

Nero stays silent, and the air is so quiet between them that he can hear the soft sounds of Dante shifting his weight between his feet. He imagines that Dante has his hand pressed up against the other side of the door, his head bowed as he tries to keep his voice soft. Eventually, he hears the other man sigh quietly before his retreating footsteps take over the silence.

He closes his eyes, exhaling sharply once he’s certain that Dante is gone, running his fingers through his bangs, careful to avoid touching his new ears. With his back against the wall, he slowly sinks downwards, until he’s sitting on the hardwood floor of the room that he’s come to call his own. Dante had happily given him this space in his shop when Nero had arrived, even though he’d shown up completely unannounced.

If it had been him and their positions were reversed, Nero’s not so sure he would have so easily let Dante in. At the very least, he would have complained about the lack of early notice. But Dante hadn’t said a word, had actually looked  _ happy  _ when he’d opened the door and seen Nero at his doorstep, in fact.

With a groan, Nero drags his hands down his face, trying to forget how  _ sad  _ Dante’s voice had sounded, even through the thick layer of the wooden door separating them. It’s been over fourteen hours since the disastrous moment when Nero had transformed back into a human while sitting on Dante’s lap, and Dante’s been to his door twice now. The first time he’d tried fruitlessly to convince Nero to come out, then had given up and dropped off a neatly folded bundle containing the possessions Nero had had on him before being forcibly turned into a rabbit, along with his clothes.

Dante had taken good care of his stuff while he’d been incapacitated, and his clothes, while still dirty from the fight, are still in wearable condition. His scarf, unfortunately, still smells like Dante, due to being in contact with the man’s coat all night, and Nero flushes as he pulls the scarf slightly upwards, burying the lower half of his face in it. 

The scarf only reminds him of how gently Dante had acted towards him while Nero had been stuck as a rabbit, and the guilt pooling in his stomach hardens unpleasantly, his fingers digging into the fabric.

He really should go talk to Dante, should stop hiding in his room like a four-year-old kid, but he  _ can’t.  _

It hadn’t really been the compromising position that they’d found themselves in that had freaked Nero enough to flee the scene, and while Dante’s obvious arousal at having Nero in his lap had been completely embarrassing, Nero couldn’t say that the other’s obvious interest in him was completely unwanted. It wasn’t even the fact that Nero was dealing with the confusion of so suddenly gaining a newfound set of ears and tail.

The real problem is pretty simple and incredibly stupid--Nero feels way too embarrassed to ever look Dante in the eye again.

Not only had Dante been forced to take care of him while he’d been uselessly squeaking about, but the whole thing was actually entirely his fault. 

If it’d been Dante, the older man probably would have been strong enough and fast enough to take out the demon before it could attack them, but Nero clearly just wasn’t  _ enough  _ of anything at all. 

Dante’s always telling him, in no uncertain words, to slow down with things, to learn how to keep a more level head when dealing with situations, but Nero had been tired and impatient and he’d just wanted to go back to bed, so when he thought he saw an opportunity, he’d taken it. 

Which, of course, had landed him paw-deep in a pile of shit. He really shouldn’t try to do anything--Dante had even done his best to shout a warning to him, which he’d sorely ignored in favor of charging blindly ahead.

His memories of his time as a rabbit are all too clear and not wholly pleasant.

It’d been painful as fuck, to start with. He’s still not even sure what happened, but he remembers vividly the pain and panic of being forced into a form that wasn’t his own. His muscles had seized and contracted and his bones had cracked underneath the pressure of being suddenly inverted and his skin had crawled unpleasantly as it had shrunk along with the rest of him. It’d been the worst thing he’d ever felt, actually, bad enough that he’d blacked out somewhere along the way.

And then he was a rabbit.

He’d been horrified to discover his new body, and for a long moment, he’d been almost consumed by a special brand of panic, the type that wondered if he’d be stuck as a rabbit for the rest of his natural life. The world had suddenly seemed too big, too loud, and utterly frightening, and, despite the fury and defiance still bubbling in his gut, he couldn’t sense anything past his rapidly heightening terror.

But then he’d heard Dante laughing.

Dante is an asshole, sure. He’s smug and cocky and always has a joke to crack with that huge mouth of his, even when the situation absolutely doesn’t call for it. In the months that Nero’s known him for, though, Dante has always been capable of a kind of compassion that is near invisible in the man from a first impression. 

Dante’s laughter at his expense had cut cleanly through his haze of panic, because he  _ knows  _ Dante, and he’d known that Dante wouldn’t find this situation nearly as funny if he didn’t already think things would be okay.

It’s so stupid--Dante almost definitely hadn’t and still doesn’t know how much he helped Nero by laughing his ass off at him like the idiot he was, but Nero had found it easy to take comfort in the humor that the other man had seen in the situation. He’d sat on the ground, pressing his new paws against the concrete for stability and done his best to glare up at Dante in the way he always did when Dante would poke fun at him, and everything about that motion had felt so completely natural that, by the time Dante was done laughing, Nero had felt like himself again.

He can still feel it when he thinks about that moment now, sitting here with his back to the wall. He’d never admit it, but Dante’s confidence, persisting even in the weirdest or most unforeseen situations, has always been something he’s secretly admired. 

Dante always moves and talks and acts like he knows exactly what he’s doing, like he easily owns every moment of his life, and being able to follow someone like that around has built up a stable source of assurance for Nero. He doesn’t have very many people in his life that he can trust, the list especially short now that Credo is gone, but in the short time that he’s lived with Dante for, the other man has definitely situated a place for himself at the very top.

So he’d trusted Dante to pick him up in his big hands, despite how unsettled he’d felt by how ridiculously  _ small  _ he suddenly was, and he’d trusted Dante to take care of him, which Dante had done perfectly. Dante had been incredibly considerate of him and his newfound size, had done everything in his power to make sure Nero was as comfortable and safe and happy as he could possibly get as a rabbit.

Even before Nero was a rabbit, Dante’s always treated him like this.

Nero’s never felt like Dante looks down upon him or sees him as anything less than an equal, but he’d come here seeking a grudging sort of mentorship from the older man, and that had been exactly what he’d gotten. Dante is always patient with him, always forgiving of his mistakes--and Nero makes a  _ lot _ , as much as he hates to say it--and always inherently respectful of what Nero wants or needs.

The stupid plate of probably cold pizza waiting outside for him is proof enough of that. Nero’s door doesn’t have a lock on it, probably because his room was initially just a spare sort of a storage area for Dante and had therefore never required one. He hadn’t minded this fact too much, considering he’d spent most of his formative years in an orphanage, having to share even a bed with yet another kid who rejected him on the basis that his mother was a rumored whore and that his father was an outsider.

Dante definitely wants to talk to Nero right now, wants to see him clearly, face-to-face and talk things out with him. But even still, he’s continuing to give Nero the privacy that he probably doesn’t deserve, despite the fact that he could literally come in at any time he wanted. Nero doesn’t know what Dante is doing on the other side, the shop unusually silent, but the other is undeniably is still trying to look out for him, without making Nero feel like he’s being babied or cornered into something he doesn’t like.

Nero’s never had anyone like Dante in his life before, and he feels warm and weirdly... _ tingly _ just at the thought of it, even as he wraps his arms around his stomach and sinks lower downwards, pulling his scarf further up over his face. He’s felt this way several times before, especially in the most recent months, but when he’d become a rabbit, the sensation had only multiplied, to the point where Nero had barely found himself in control of his actions.

Dante had been  _ petting  _ him, had held Nero close to his chest and cuddled him for over five hours in a row that night, and Nero had been more than happy to let it all happen, even bumping his rabbit nose against the rough skin of Dante’s palm and licking gently at the other man’s fingers. He hadn’t meant to be so obvious in his display of reciprocated affection, but it’d been hard to think through how nice the feeling of Dante gently handling him was, and Nero’s movements had been more of an instinctual reaction than anything.

As a rabbit, letting himself give in to his more basic desires had been far easier, his usual self-restraint and apprehension buried underneath a thick layer of simple rabbit thoughts.

Which, of course, is the very root of Nero’s problem. 

The biggest thing that becoming a rabbit had done for him was to force him to face what he actually wanted, and what he wanted had turned out to be Dante. It’d been perfectly okay, somewhere in his muddled mind, to let Dante hug and kiss him as a rabbit, because he technically hadn’t been himself. But that didn’t erase the fact that, if Nero  _ was  _ himself, he’d be just as eager for Dante to shower him with the same kind of affection.

When Nero had been very suddenly turned back into a human, in a far less painful transformation than the first, he’d been hit with the truth of his feelings at an alarming, overwhelming speed. And, of course, with Dante sitting right there, shifting underneath Nero’s very naked form, Nero’s next move had become abundantly clear to him, his residual instincts from his time as a rabbit in absolute agreement with him.

As a prey animal, when faced with an impossible danger and an unsolvable problem, the best and only thing left to do was to make a run for it.

At least Nero could accomplish  _ that. _

Fourteen hours later, he’s only a little calmer than he’d been in that moment, and no less in complete and absolute denial of his Dante-related feelings.

He  _ can’t  _ like Dante. Dante should be, by very basic definition, unlikable. The man is ridiculously messy, his home had been a complete disaster area before Nero had arrived and cleaned the place up, and he spends nearly all of his disposable income on pizza and strange discount-bin items that absolutely no one needs. On top of all that, he has a stupidly smug face, always smirking about something, especially when those somethings pertain to quips about Nero.

Dante also lacks the precious resource known as common sense, if the way he behaves half of the time is anything to go by. Nero isn’t entirely sure how much of Dante’s brain is empty air and how much of it is just pizza, but he’s willing to bet that the two might be in equal proportion to one another, honestly.

Unfortunately, the more time that Nero spends mentally berating Dante in his mind, the warmer he feels.

Because for everything that Dante is, he also isn’t.

Dante has to be the least sensible person that Nero knows, but the man is still an incredibly fast learner, able to pick up any weapon or Devil Arm and figure out how to use it with expert-level finesse in a matter of seconds. Several sections of Dante’s office are haphazardly packed with books and documents, many of them in different languages, and Nero sometimes catches Dante rifling through them when he thinks Nero isn’t looking.

He’s always teasing Nero one way or another, ruffling his hair and giving him increasingly irritating nicknames and peppering him with unsolicited, offhanded suggestions. But Dante’s tone is always kind and his advice is almost always useful, and Nero always finds himself taking it in, storing the man’s words into the back of his mind and heart.

And he’s irrevocably lazy and messy, from any angle that Nero wants to look at it, but, deep down, in the part of himself that he is greatly embarrassed by, he thinks he wouldn’t actually mind a life of following after the man and cleaning up his post-pizza buffet messes.

Dante is so simultaneously shamelessly shallow and perfectly profound that Nero can’t help but gravitate towards him, first out of a curiosity to learn more about him, and then out of a desire to stay close to the person that he’s found.

Nero is awful, has terrible taste if  _ Dante  _ is the epitome of everything he wants in a partner.

He runs his fingers through his hair again, brushing accidentally against his long rabbit ears, trying to remind himself of the much more visible problem at hand. The matter of his feelings could easily be hidden, buried away to never again see the light, but the issue of his half-rabbit status certainly couldn’t.

And to solve this particular problem, Nero is going to need the help of someone with a lot more Devil-hunting experience than himself. 

He’s been hiding away in here for long enough, anyway.

With a glance at the door, he slowly gets to his feet, tugging nervously at his scarf as he pulls open the door, bending down to scoop up the plate of pizza waiting at his feet. As the slice of pizza shifts with the motion, Nero notices that Dante has carefully tucked the remaining pieces of lettuce underneath. 

A vague memory of all the times he’s caustically pointed out Dante’s terrible nutritional practices slowly surfaces in Nero’s mind. He’s scolded Dante plenty for how few vegetables the man has in his diet, insisting that people need this sort of stuff to live, but from the way that Dante always shrugged and stuffed his face with pizza, he didn’t think Dante was actually  _ listening  _ to him.

Awful.

Nero pulls up his scarf, ducking his head in it and trying to hide his smile as he exits the room properly. 

Dante is laying on the couch with one arm behind his head, evidently asleep, and Nero walks as quietly as possible, taking a seat in one of Dante’s spare chairs and slowly nibbling at his pizza and lettuce while he thinks of what he’s going to say.

He’s definitely going to leave out the whole part about his feelings, that’s for sure. Dante definitely doesn’t reciprocate Nero’s feelings, probably still just sees him as some kid that he’s training up in the devil hunting business, and Nero doesn’t think the two of them need the awkward tension of Nero’s one-sided crush floating between them and getting in the way of things.

But he should apologize to Dante for running out on him, at least, because that’d been a pretty shitty thing to do, especially after everything Dante had done for him.

By the time he finishes his pizza, he’s gained at least some of his nerve back, and he sets the plate aside to wash later, then gently leans forward to shake Dante awake. 

The other man cracks open an eye, his pupils lazily flickering from Nero’s face to his feet, looking him over before properly sitting up, twisting around to squint at the clock on the far side of the wall. It’s two in the morning, which Nero hadn’t realized until just now, and he feels immediately bad for waking Dante up.

“How’re you feeling, kid?” Dante asks, without preamble, looking at him with obvious concern. “Good to see you out of the room.”

The other man says nothing about Nero’s ears and tail, much to his surprise, and a long moment of silence descends upon them as Nero fidgets in place, trying not to call too much attention to the obvious.

“I’m...uh…fine, I guess.”

Dante swallows hard, his eyes clearly drifting over to the rabbit ears, but the man _still_ says nothing, which is both unsettling and irritating. Nero isn’t used to Dante being so obviously reserved and quiet around him, and he has a heavy suspicion that most of it has to do with Nero’s less-than-considerate handling of the situation.

In other words, he has to fix this.

“Look, Dante…” Nero starts, but Dante immediately shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he tells him honestly, and Nero stares at him, attempting to formulate some sort of appropriate interruption when Dante, as always, beats him to the punch. 

“That was a pretty awkward situation for us both. Timing definitely could have been better. And that, uh...wasn’t the way I wanted you to find out about how I feel about you.”

Huh.

Nero very slowly nods, trying to pretend like Dante hasn’t disrupted his fourteen hours of internal panic and planning with a single, spectacularly blunt sentence.

“How you...feel about me?” Nero repeats, like some sort of brainless parrot, because his mind is really not all that present at the moment.

Dante rubs at his face, fingers scratching at the stubble on his jaw as he grimaces.

“I won’t lie to you, Nero. It’s definitely all kinds of fucked up, but I’m attracted to you, more or less.”

He holds up his hands again, in a placating sort of gesture, like he’s afraid that Nero is going to lash out at him, but Nero is still too dazed to really respond, making a numb sort of noise to indicate that Dante should continue. 

“Don’t get me wrong--I’m not asking you for anything. I wouldn’t expect anything, anyway. I won’t mind if you think it’s weird that I’m into you and decide to leave. No hard feelings, I promise. But I’m also just gonna put it out there that I wouldn’t ever force you into something you didn’t want.”

Nero thinks that this is probably the best opportunity that he has to actually say something back, to tell Dante that his feelings probably aren’t weird, because they are both highly desired and highly reciprocated. 

“I...don’t want to leave,” is all he manages to choke out, curling his fists nervously at his sides as he ducks his head into his scarf, doing his best to avoid eye contact with Dante. He tries to make himself elaborate further on his statement, but the words are sticking to the sides of his throat, refusing to come out.

Nero’s never been very good at expressing how he truly feels, because time and time again he’s found that it’s so much better to pretend like he doesn’t care, rather than invest his emotions into something and come away burned by it. His long-standing friendship with Kyrie and Credo is the closest he’s come to really opening his heart up, and one-half of that has already successfully backfired on him, anyway.

Besides, he only has evidence of a physical attraction towards him on Dante’s part. 

In the months they’ve been together, Dante has certainly made clear that he, as a half-human male, has needs, and has regularly fulfilled them with a string of random encounters, evidently uncaring of the fact that Nero was attempting to sleep in the room downstairs. The noises easily reached Nero through the thin walls of the shop, and, having grown up in a religious settlement for the first nineteen years of his life, Nero could barely picture what Dante was doing, much less understand how the act of intercourse actually worked. 

But he knows enough, at the very least, to understand that Dante is quite interested in bedding him, if his earlier admission is anything to go by.

Somehow, the thought stings more than it really should. Nero doesn’t think he wants that, entirely. While he’s not sure exactly what it would entail, he probably isn’t opposed to the thought of having sex with Dante--it’s moreso that he doesn’t  _ only  _ want to have sex with Dante. 

Nero grudgingly wants the affection that Dante had shown him when he was a rabbit, and if he isn’t completely sure that Dante is willing to give that to him in his human form, then Nero isn’t about to stick his neck out and risk getting slapped in the face for it.

So he says nothing after that one declaration, keeping his gaze firmly trained on his lap. Dante seems to have been expecting a bit more from him, but recovers quickly, humming neutrally into the silence.

“Alright, then. Sounds good to me.”

The other man doesn’t sound entirely satisfied with Nero’s answer, but Nero suspects that the relief that heavily shades the tone of Dante’s voice is preventing him from pushing Nero any further. That, or Dante doesn’t feel the need to push any further, because all he feels for Nero is a vague, passing desire to get into his pants.

Great. 

Nero clenches his jaw, his fingers digging into his thighs as he continues to stare hard at his lap. If he’s going to stay with Dante, he’s going to have to get over himself and his completely irrational feelings.

“Yeah,” Nero forces himself to agree, taking in another breath as he carefully looks up. 

Dante’s face is neutral, and either Nero’s gotten really bad at reading him, or Dante is employing some sort of emotion-masking technique. Considering how shamelessly the other man always seems to act, Nero doubts it’s the latter--Dante has no reason to hide how he feels about him, after all.

“So...what now? Are we just going to pretend like this didn’t happen? And that you don’t…”

Dante shrugs, the motion a bit too practiced. “If that’s what you want, kid, then that’s what we’ll do.”

Nero swallows, his throat feeling oddly dry, but he ducks his head back into his scarf. He isn’t too sure what he wants anymore, but he thinks he knows what the best and safest option in this matter is, at the very least.

“Okay,” he says, quietly. He nods, more to himself than anything, as he hastily shoves his Dante-related feelings downwards. “Okay. Then...what about this?”

Both out of curiosity and a burning desire to change the topic, he reaches up, tugging lightly at a rabbit ear. Dante follows the motion of his hand with his eyes, his gaze dropping down to where Nero’s tail is hidden behind him.

“I...I’m really not too sure, kid. The curse should have cleared up the instant that the demon was killed. Don’t get me wrong--I seriously doubt you’re stuck like this forever. It’ll have to go away on its own at some point, definitely. But...if you want it gone faster, I’m not so sure what we can do.”

So even Dante doesn’t know.

“Then I just have to wait it out?” Nero folds his arms and sinks a little lower in his chair, trying to pretend like it doesn’t bother him as much as it actually does. “Shouldn’t be too bad.”

“Well, you might have to stay inside for a bit. Wouldn’t want you alarming any innocent souls out there. Besides...people will probably try grabbing your ears. Don’t think any of us want that, really.”

Nero feels his ears twitch just at the mention of being pulled, and he instinctively brings his hands to them, covering them almost protectively. Dante chuckles lightly at the gesture, leaning forward like he wants to reach out to him, but stops himself at the last second, sticking his hands into the pockets of his coat instead.

“Fine. Whatever,” Nero mutters, disliking the suddenly uneasy tension that colors their interactions. 

Dante is being careful around him, stepping around him like he’s a particularly volatile landmine, and Nero, who has grown particularly used to and almost fond of the way Dante would normally charge headfirst into the explosion that Nero was, finds himself helplessly unhappy about this development.

But Dante already looks more than a little uncomfortable, and Nero has completely taxed his allotted emotional response quantities for about the next month or so, so he just shakes his head to himself, resolving to wallow silently in his own feelings.

“I’ll deal with it.”

 

* * *

 

Nero does deal with it, until about a week later.

Life isn’t so different now that he has a set of rabbit features, as he’s discovered. He’s back on a normal human diet, for the most part, and he doesn’t think he’s retained any particularly rabbity instincts or behaviors. He certainly doesn’t find himself faced with the urge to lick Dante’s hand or nibble on his clothes anymore, which is a huge relief, especially considering how stilted their relationship has become.

But maybe it’s the fact that he’s been cooped up inside of the shop for the past week, or maybe it’s because he’s still confused and generally unhappy about the conclusion he and Dante have come to--whatever the reason, on the seventh day of his half-rabbit existence, Nero wakes up in an irritable, awful mood.

He kicks off his blankets with a special sort of fury, immediately sitting up and feeling all at once like he needs to  _ move. _ He can’t just sit still here, his muscles are cramped and tense and all he really wants is to maybe run one or two or one hundred times around the city until he passes out from exhaustion.

It sounds like an incredibly good idea on paper, but in practice, Nero is hindered by the fact that the stifling heat in the air around him really makes him not want to move at all.

“What the fuck,” he says out loud, into the empty air, more than a little concerned at the sudden raspiness in his voice. 

He needs a drink of water, maybe.

Slowly, he pokes his head out of the door of his room, but the shop is empty, as usual. Dante’s been taking on jobs back-to-back since their last awkward conversation. With Nero’s rabbit situation, the other man has a perfectly good excuse to go on solo missions, but, with the increasingly prominent complete absence of the other man from the shop, Nero can’t help but suspect that Dante is actually trying to see Nero as little as possible.

Which shouldn’t be too bad, considering what they’d agreed on--to coexist normally and peacefully while pretending that Dante wasn’t interested in fucking him and that Nero wasn’t interested in laying on the couch and cuddling with Dante for an extended period of time. Not that Dante knew about the latter part, of course.

Nero’s been dealing with the whole thing just fine, actually. Today is just an odd sort of exception.

He fills up a glass of cold water for himself, draining the whole thing as he shifts his weight between his feet, nearly bouncing in place. The water barely does anything for him, sliding down his dry throat and leaving it exactly as parched as before. His head still feels foggy and his muscles are tired, and he either wants to go back to sleep or climb the tallest building in the city—he’s really not sure which. 

He tilts his head, trying to stretch his muscles, and catches a glimpse of the clock. 

It’s nearly twelve in the afternoon, which is incredibly alarming to Nero, considering he always,  _ always  _ woke up with the sun. Even if he’d been tired, Nero was always a light sleeper. Surely the sound of Dante leaving the shop for his newest job would have awoken him.

Where the  _ fuck _ is Dante, actually?

The thought crosses his mind in an irritable flash as the oppressive silence of the shop bears down on him and he feels his expressive ears twitch in annoyance. With an angry tug at his collar, Nero opens up the top buttons on his already-thin nightshirt, running his hands through his messy sleep-tousled hair. Dante should be here—Dante’s the reason behind about fifty percent of his misery, after all. 

Stupid fucking old man. 

Another hiss escapes him in a sharp exhale, and Nero roughly deposits the glass in the sink, stalking over to Dante’s desk. Something inside of him balks at the thought of leaving dirty glassware lying about, but right now, Nero honestly couldn’t give less of a fuck if he tried. 

Maybe Dante’s left a note for him or something, or some kind of clue to let Nero know where he is, so that Nero can track his ass down and haul him back into the shop and then...yell at him, or something. Nero isn’t quite sure what he wants with Dante, if he’s honest. He just needs the man to be  _ here,  _ with him. 

In a violent motion, Nero rips open one of Dante’s desk drawers, his other hand scattering the papers on the surface of the desk and easily knocking them off of the table. He’s making such a mess, and it’s awful, but he can’t bring himself to be any gentler as he tears through Dante’s possessions, the irritation bubbling up inside of him until it’s almost blinding. 

He isn’t supposed to go outside—even if he does figure out where Dante is, he shouldn’t even act on the knowledge. If someone on the outside caught wind of his ears and tail, Nero would be labeled as a freak for sure. He’s already had enough of that shit in Fortuna, and he definitely doesn’t need it here, in his new home. 

The thought is enough to make him breathe deeply, pressing a hand against his head as he grits his teeth, making an incredible effort to think through his increasingly muddied thoughts. He has to calm down, he has to get his shit together, because he has no fucking idea what he’s doing, and he might end up doing something truly idiotic in his current emotional state. 

The burst of energy seems to leave him as quickly as it had come, and Nero sinks into Dante’s office chair bonelessly, the feeling of anger replaced by one of utterly incomprehensible upset. He’s  _ sad,  _ for absolutely no reason, and as he curls up in the office chair, turning his face into the back and absently noting Dante’s lingering scent on it, the twisting, horrible feeling in his stomach grows worse and worse. 

Why is Dante gone? Stupid fuck had no right to leave Nero alone like this, not when Nero  _ needs  _ him, and if he had any decency, he’d come back, right this instant and...and…

Nero bites down on his lip, hard, the pain of the action momentarily dispelling his completely  _ wrong  _ thoughts. It wasn’t Dante’s fault that he was out on a job, and Nero certainly didn’t need a  _ babysitter,  _ he should be able to take care of himself just fine, really. 

So what the fuck is wrong with him? 

He feels his ears tickling against his neck, suddenly incredibly present, and, without thinking, he reaches for them again, gently brushing his fingers downwards, stroking the fur from the base of the ear to the very end. The sensation makes him shudder, his eyes slipping closed as some bizarre form of comfort washes over him, and he finds himself mindlessly repeating the motion, burying his head further into the chair and taking in more of Dante’s scent. 

With his eyes closed and Dante’s familiar smell surrounding him, his own hand, in his mind, is replaced by a much larger, rougher one, the skin of the palm covered in calluses but the touch incredibly gentle all the same. Nero feels something like a low whine escape him, and he bites down hard on his free hand in an attempt to shut himself up and snap out of whatever the hell this was, but his body refuses to cooperate with him, shifting restlessly on the chair. 

As he squirms against the leather of the office chair, he feels his tail brush against the surface, and he immediately gasps as a rush of something not entirely unpleasant goes straight to his head. He stills his motions on his ear, cracking open an eye and twisting around himself to stare at his tail, which he’d crammed into his loose pair of boxers the other night before going to bed. 

Why had he done that, again?

Confining his tail in such a cramped, horrible fabric was such a spectacularly bad idea, now that he really thinks about it. With trembling hands, he reaches downwards, slipping his fingers underneath the waistband of his boxers before tugging them downwards, his tail springing free. It’s not much of a relief, if he’s honest, but it’s still much better than having it trapped in there. 

With another embarrassing noise, he wiggles properly out of his underwear, kicking it off and casting it off somewhere to the side, leaving his lower half completely exposed. He’s normally a lot more reserved about showing skin like this, but Dante isn’t even fucking here to see him like this, anyway, so it didn’t even matter. 

Pressing his head back against the chair, Nero reaches properly for his tail, wrapping his fingers around it and squeezing tightly, barely able to stifle his moans at the shocks of pleasure that go straight to his brain.

He’s never really touched his tail before. While his ears were more than fair game for his constant curiosity-driven poking and prodding, his tail had been attached to such an innately private part of him that Nero had been a little put off of going anywhere near it.

His earlier reservations have been all but abandoned now as he shamelessly gropes at his own tail, his free arm pressed firmly over his mouth to muffle his noises as he squirms into his own touch. Nero barely knows what he’s doing, his mind blissfully foggy and blank, only faintly registering his own arousal, and when he looks down, he’s almost surprised to see himself hard. 

He thinks it maybe should hurt, rather than feel good, the way he’s so roughly squeezing and pulling at his tail, but no matter what he does, it seems like he can’t go wrong.

In fact, the only way this could possibly be any better is if--

“Kid?” 

Nero abruptly twists his head, cracking open his eyes to see Dante, who is staring open-mouthed at him, the deep blue of his eyes reduced to thin rings around his dilated pupils. Nero feels frozen, his hand still wrapped around his tail, and his legs spread in an awfully compromising position, with a burning, shameful heat crawling up the back of his neck.

Dante is blinking slowly at him, his eyes traveling over Nero’s body before he clears his throat, forcibly turning his head to the side.

“I should go,” Dante starts, twisting around like he’s ready to walk out the door.

Nero looks hard at his turned back, his heart beating too quickly in his chest, his thoughts swirling hazily in his mind before something inside of him very suddenly knows what he wants. 

“Dante,” he interrupts, his voice coming out in a choked out gasp.

Dante pauses in his steps but doesn’t turn around, much to Nero’s frustration, and he grits his teeth, forcing himself to stand up on shaky legs, bracing his hands against the desk for support.

“Wait--don’t you dare fucking run away again!”

The muscles in Dante’s broad back stiffen as his fists clench at his sides, and he slowly turns around, looking determinedly at a space near the side of Nero’s head.

“Nero, I don’t think…”

Nero makes himself wobble forward, and Dante makes a vague noise of alarm in the back of his throat, instinctively reaching forward to catch him as his shaky legs give out on him, sending him face first into Dante’s chest. He curls his fingers into Dante’s shirt, ignoring the way his body desperately wants to press itself up against the other man, and glares up at Dante’s face.

“This is what you wanted, right?” Nero snaps out. 

Ordinarily, he wouldn’t do this--he wouldn’t throw himself at Dante just for the chance to be a little closer to him--but he feels so painfully desperate that he’s starting to grind up against Dante’s leg for some form of contact. He feels like he’s some kind of wild animal, and, all things considered, he might as well be one. Whatever the hell  _ this  _ is, it’s definitely courtesy of his new appearance.

Maybe if Dante gives him what his half-rabbit body so clearly wants, this whole stupid mess will blow over and Nero can go back to living his normal life.

Dante swallows hard, averting his gaze, even as he keeps his hands on Nero’s shoulders. Despite the fact that Nero is quite literally humping his leg, he doesn’t seem too interested in pushing Nero away, instead twisting them around to back them up into the desk, so that Dante is leaning against it. 

“I said that, yeah, but…” He gently pries Nero’s face away from his chest, looking down into his eyes. There’s an almost tender look on the man’s face, one that Nero feels like he should appreciate, but now he just feels impatient.

“You didn’t seem too happy about it before. What’s going on, now, kid?” Dante asks slowly, his expression turning increasingly concerned as Nero squirms in his grip. 

Nero feels that familiar irritation again, feels desperate and impatient and like he wants to crawl out of his own skin with how overall awful everything is.

“Fuck you, Dante. You sleep with strangers all the fucking time. Don’t tell me you’re choosing  _ now  _ to play the good guy,” Nero spits, desperately grinding against Dante for some sort of friction. 

He’s practically in Dante’s lap at this point, continuously forcing the man back until he’s almost sitting on the edge of his desk, and Nero leans up against him, causing Dante’s hands to automatically drift to his waist to stabilize him.

“Nero, I don’t think you want this. Not really, I mean.”

Dante is  _ still  _ trying to explain things to him, still trying to talk endless, annoying words at him, and Nero wants none of it.

“No,” Nero shudders, falling forward and burying his face in Dante’s shoulder. The man’s scent surrounds him, and he feels his ears and tail twitching in response. 

“I  _ need  _ this,” he finally whispers out, tilting his head to the side to look at Dante in what he hopes is a pleading, convincing sort of way.

He can feel the way that Dante’s hands tense against his waist in response, the man’s eyes darkening as he bows his head, reaching up with a steady hand and brushing gently against one of Nero’s ears. Nero shuts his eyes, leaning into the touch, an involuntary sort of whimper escaping his throat.

“Dante, please,” he continues, his pride having dropped somewhere into hell somewhere along the time he’d started fondling his own tail. 

The man is still shaking his head, even if the expression on his face is looking increasingly unsure. Nero can feel the hardness of Dante’s erection through the layer of cloth separating them, and he grits his teeth, grinding hard up against him, trying to catch Dante’s interest.

_ “Shit,  _ Nero--Nero,  _ stay still,” _ Dante immediately hisses, his hands readjusting their grip on Nero’s hip in a futile attempt to keep him from moving, even as he jerks involuntarily upwards into the contact. He clenches his jaw, pressing his hand harder against the back of Nero’s head, tugging slightly against Nero’s ear with the motion.

Nero’s pulled on his own ears before and has definitely done more than enough touching at this point, but this is on a completely different level. He feels like he’s been shocked, a sharp tingle running sharply down his spine, and his entire body goes limp against Dante.

“I...I can’t,” Nero answers back, feeling utterly pathetic in how hard he’s pushing for this, how desperately he’s throwing himself at the man, but everything is confusing and foggy and mostly hot, and Nero feels like he might actually die if Dante pushes him away now.

“If you--if you don’t help me, I’ll...I’ll go find someone else.”

It isn’t much of a threat, now that Nero really thinks about it. Dante could very easily dump him here alone, and Nero wouldn’t exactly be in the best of conditions to stop him, much less go out and find someone on the street willing to fuck him, not with the way his body feels like boneless jelly, leaning so heavily on Dante just to hold himself upright. 

_ “No.” _

He’s surprised when something like a low growl vibrates in Dante’s chest, and when he looks up, Dante’s eyes have darkened. He slides off of the desk, but Nero barely has time to feel disappointment before he’s being roughly flipped around, manhandled until he’s bent over the desk and Dante is leaning over him, his lower half pressed against Nero’s ass.

Nero tries to grind back against Dante, a whimper leaving him as his tail brushes against Dante’s clothed crotch.

Dante’s large, heavy hand comes down on the center of Nero’s upper back, pushing him down against the hard surface of the desk.

“Tell me again that you want this,” Dante orders, his voice rough and deeper than normal. His words are firm, but he’s obviously still probing for Nero’s consent, making good on his earlier promise. 

Nero inhales slowly, his breath shuddering in his chest as he twists his head to look back at Dante. Dante’s other hand is starting to squeeze at Nero’s tail with deliberate movements, and he squirms underneath the touch, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

He swallows, trying to blink through his blurry vision, panting and whining harshly into the expectant silence.

If he says no, or even says nothing at all, Dante will immediately back off--Nero’s never been more certain of anything in his life. 

“I...want this.”

The words leave his lips, shaky but sure, and the tight band around Dante’s self-control snaps.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, leaning over Nero until the muscles of his chest press against Nero’s arched back, a large, rough hand sliding underneath the thin fabric of Nero’s nightshirt and pushing it upwards.

“So do I.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK U HORNY RABBITFUCKERS HERE IT IS....the final part in the PROPAGANDA SAGA  
> special shoutout to dante's dick which has been hard for 2 weeks, luna for seeing past the massive horny in order 2 beta, and TartCherryScones whose gift fic actually reminded me that this fic exists and was unfinished SHGHSGHSGH

Dante wastes as little time as possible as he shoves Nero’s too-long shirt upwards, wrapping his hand back around that soft, fluffy looking tail. He’s been wanting to touch it for  _ days _ now, hasn’t been able to stop himself from looking at it or thinking about it whenever Nero is within his immediate vicinity. Of course, he’d thought that the kid had made it pretty clear that he didn’t return Dante’s extensive interest in him, and he hardly thought it’d be appropriate to walk around the shop while sporting a visible boner in front of the boy.

Of course, the best solution in his mind had been to take on a multitude of jobs, ones that would keep him far away from the shop, and by extension, Nero. 

That choice seems like a particularly fantastic mistake at this point, because watching Nero squirm underneath him, whining and panting as he grinds his adorable little tail against the rough palm of Dante’s hand makes Dante feel like free-pizza day at his favorite shop has come early. Nero’s reactions are just too cute, and his tail is so puffy and soft to the touch. 

As fascinated as he is by Nero’s tail, though, he still has a request to fulfill, and Dante is certainly a man of his word. 

It’s a bit of a stretch, but he manages to lean over Nero and reach the still open drawers of his desk, rifling around for the necessary materials and eventually extracting a bottle of lube and a wrapped condom. Dante always likes to be prepared, and it’s not the first time that his office desk has seen the more private end of his “business dealings,” so he hardly thinks it’s unusual that he keeps his supplies at hand. He isn’t too sure why Nero had opened up his drawers in the first place, but given how innocent and virginal the kid is, he doubts that he was looking for the same thing Dante was. 

Nero makes an impatient sort of whine, and Dante chuckles lowly, giving him another squeeze to the tail to tide him over.

“Just be patient, okay? I got you, kid,” he reassures the boy. “One sec, though.” 

In a swift movement, he leans to his left, picking up his picture of his mother and turning it around to face the far end of the wall. She was accepting of a lot of things, but Dante doubts that she’d take too well to having this display right in front of her face. 

He then pours out the lube on his hand, rubbing his palms together as he returns his attention to Nero, who has his head tilted to the side, watching his movements with a strange sort of look in his eyes, something almost affectionate hidden deep underneath the haze of lust. 

“Not sure how much you know about how this works, but I’ve gotta prepare you first. Don’t want to hurt you.”

Nero swallows, his flushed cheeks turning a darker red as he buries his face back into his arms.

“Do whatever you want. I...trust you.”

Well. With that reassurance on his side, Dante can hardly go wrong now, can he?

He gently grips one of Nero’s hips with a hand, slowly inserting a finger into the boy’s entrance. Nero is already ridiculously tight, and he instinctively clenches even further around him at the unfamiliar sensation, letting out a sharp gasp as his body shudders slowly underneath Dante’s. The boy’s reaction makes Dante’s mouth go dry, and as he looks down, he’s sharply reminded of their difference in size and of Nero’s virginal status. 

He’s forced to swallow back the wave of possessive delight that rises up in him at the notion of taking Nero’s first time, his already hard cock twitching in the confines of his pants, already excited to be buried within the kid. Dante is honestly proud of his own self-restraint as he works Nero open, adding another finger and stroking at Nero’s tail to help loosen him up when the kid becomes a little too tense to be comfortable. 

Nero is even more impatient than he is, it seems, because Dante’s two fingers don’t get much time to do their job before Nero twists his head to glare at him with a hiss, abruptly shoving himself backward on Dante’s fingers. Dante can feel the tips of his fingers brush against Nero’s prostate at the new angle, and the boy, clearly not having expected it, immediately jerks at the sensation, his back arching as he bites into his arm with a muffled cry. 

The noise goes straight to his already painfully hard dick, and Dante struggles to control himself, letting out a choked sort of chuckle as he hastily unbuckles his pants with his free hand, the other intent on teasing at Nero’s prostate. 

“I always knew you were impatient, kid, but I sure am getting new surprises today, aren’t I?”

Nero inhales deeply, and Dante feels the shakiness in his muscles as he does his best to look back at him.

“Hurry the  _ fuck _ up, Dante, or I swear to the Savior—“ 

Dante takes perhaps a little too much pleasure in curling his fingers particularly hard inside of Nero at that moment, interrupting the kid mid-sentence in favor of another one of those delicious sounding whimpers.

He’s feeling pretty antsy himself, though, and if Nero is so willing to take him, then Dante really has no choice. He’s never been very good at saying no to this kid, after all. 

He pulls his fingers out of Nero, relishing in the disappointed whine Nero makes at the sudden emptiness, and doesn’t bother to undress as he takes his dick properly out of his pants. Dante can pinpoint the exact moment Nero lays eyes on his length because the kid goes completely quiet, staring at him with a wide-eyed look, his eyes flicking between Dante’s face and his crotch.

“It’ll fit. I promise,” Dante attempts to reassure him, because as much as he wants to make this good for Nero and doesn’t want to hurt him, if he’s forced to stop and let the kid go after they’ve gone all this way, he might honestly cry.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that one of his partners has backed out on him upon seeing his exact size, either intimidated or generally unnerved. Dante can always see the way they look over him, their eyes lingering on his large hands and broad shoulders, the way that the fear that he’ll lose control of himself or just generally be an asshole and hurt them always lurks in their eyes, even if they try to deny it. 

He doesn’t want Nero to ever look at him like that. Dante doesn’t have very many people left in his life, and the last thing he wants to do is drive this fluffy, feisty kid that he’s come to probably love over the months away just because he couldn’t keep his pants zipped up.

Nero blinks at him for a second longer, huffing out a sigh, one of his hands coming to stroke at his own ears as he tries to relax underneath Dante.

“It’d better.”

Dante interprets Nero’s indirect consent for what it is, readjusting his grip on Nero’s waist and slicking himself up, rather hurriedly rolling the condom on before pressing himself forward, the tip of his cock brushing against Nero’s entrance. Nero is already ridiculously sensitive, tensing up before Dante’s even entered him yet, and Dante tries to soothe him further, stroking a long line down from the base of the boy’s neck down to his tail. 

When he thinks that the kid’s body is relaxed enough, he finally properly pushes into him, groaning lowly as the rim of Nero’s entrance envelops the head of his dick. There’s quite a bit of length to go, but Dante’s honestly uncertain if Nero can handle it. The kid is so fucking  _ tight,  _ and despite being experienced in this field and having seen his fair share of encounters, even he’s starting to doubt the plausibility of this. 

Nero, apparently, doesn’t share his reservations.

Dante sees what the kid is trying to do beforehand, but his thoughts, still muddled by the unbearable heat around him, are slow to catch up with the rest of him, and before he can stop Nero, the kid abruptly shoves himself backward, forcing himself to take the rest of Dante fully inside of him. 

_ “Shit—!” _

Dante slams his palm into the desk beside Nero’s head, clenching his jaw so hard it hurts. His other hand is still gripping Nero’s hip with a bruising force, but he’s a little too busy fighting against the urge to immediately thrust into the boy’s tight, warm heat to remember to ease up on his hold. He exhales sharply through his gritted teeth, dropping his head down as he leans over Nero, his chest nearly pressed against the boy’s back.

Pressed up against Nero like this, he can hear the kid’s ragged breathing, feels the trembling of his body as he instinctively clenches around Dante at the sensation of being so suddenly filled. They’re locked so tightly that even the motion of leaning forward accidentally pushes him impossibly deeper into the boy, drawing out another grunt from him and a high-pitched, incredibly strained whine from Nero. 

He can’t see Nero’s face in the position they’re in, but the kid is definitely in much more pain than is remotely acceptable in Dante’s mind.

“Just...just breathe, kid. Can you do that for me?” He struggles to say, forcing himself to work through the haze rapidly filling his mind. 

Being inside Nero is so  _ good,  _ and not only because the kid’s a virgin or because of how tight he is—Dante’s been waiting to be this intimately close to the kid for a long time, and the satisfaction of finally getting what he wants, coupled with how perfect Nero feels around him, like he was  _ made _ to take Dante’s cock, awakens the demonic instinct that takes up half of his biology. 

He’s tried again and again to suppress them when Nero is around, but they’re impossible to ignore now, practically demanding that he take what is rightfully his, immediately. Dante bites down on the inside of his cheek, hard enough to draw blood, and shakes his head, trying to dispel the thoughts.

“Kid? You good?” 

Nero doesn’t appear to hear him, still whimpering quietly underneath him, and Dante catches the glimpse of wet tears on the boy’s skin, where his face is still buried into his arm. He bites back another curse, resting his forearm on his desk to support his weight and shakily removes his hand from Nero’s hip to tangle in the kid’s hair, petting at his soft hair and the base of his long, floppy ears. 

The kid had been petting them pretty hard when Dante had first walked in, and he suspected that the motion brought at least some level of comfort to the boy, in a different way than his tail did. 

Nero unconsciously leans into his touch with a soft noise, and Dante feels the tight heat around him loosen up by a fraction of an inch, just enough to allow Dante to breathe normally again, the air escaping from between his teeth as he keeps up his gentle, slow motion, lightly rubbing one of Nero’s ears between his fingers. Nero apparently seems to especially like that, because he shudders underneath Dante with a pleased sort of noise, the tips of his human ears and the back of his neck flushing with embarrassment at his own noises.

“Dante,” Nero finally says somewhat breathlessly after a pause, and Dante would have to blind to notice the change that’s slowly coming over the kid, the way his little gasps and pants turn more desperate and breathy, his tail twitching uncontrollably, the fluff brushing against the skin of Dante’s pelvis. 

Dante remembers exactly what he’d walked into when he’d re-entered his shop that afternoon, and isn’t likely to forget the sight at any point in his future, the vision of Nero helplessly groping his own tail and squirming on his chair, his legs wide open for Dante to see  _ everything  _ burned permanently into his mind.

With the initial pain of the intrusion gone, whatever the rabbit-curse had initially been doing the kid is easily taking over his mind again, making Nero think that he  _ needs  _ Dante more than anything else, and fuck if that doesn’t make his cock twitch inside of the boy, he doesn’t know what will.

“I need you to--I need…”

He wiggles his hips experimentally as he speaks, moaning out as Dante’s cock brushes up against his prostate, and the boy instinctively bucks his hips back into Dante.

Dante chuckles breathlessly, feeling his eyes darken in lust as he steadies himself, pulling all the way out until only the tip of his dick is still inside of Nero.

“Yeah, I know. I got you, baby boy.”

With Nero whining so needily underneath him, Dante doesn’t bother to start slow, thrusting into the boy at a decent pace, the muscles in his back tensing with the effort as he roughly fucks Nero into the desk. The kid doesn’t seem to mind the manhandling--if anything, he looks even more turned on by it, Dante’s name escaping his lips in adorable little mewls. 

The boy obviously tries to stifle himself, his teeth sinking into the flesh of his forearm as he hides away in embarrassment, and Dante has enough presence of mind to angle his hips into a much better position, directly slamming into Nero’s prostate on the next thrust. The kid all but wails at the sensation, writhing underneath him, back arching hard enough to bruise, and quite suddenly, Dante decides that he needs to see the kid’s face.

He pulls out in a swift motion, missing the warmth of Nero’s body around him the instant he does, and Nero barely has time to express his disappointed confusion before Dante flips him over, propping him up until half of the boy’s lower back hangs off of the edge of the desk, supported only by Dante’s hands and the weight of his upper half against the wooden surface. 

Like this, he can get a good look at Nero’s face, and he deeply appreciates the way the kid’s blue eyes focus on his face, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes from the sensation of getting fucked, his cheeks flushed as he pants and keens breathlessly underneath him.

“You’re really amazing, little bunny, you know that?” he notes, with a special sort of fondness in his voice, and Nero is too out of it to snap at him for the nickname, instead letting out another adorable whine in protest.

As he slides back into the boy, Dante can’t help but lean down, pressing a messy kiss to the kid’s lips and swallowing Nero’s moan in his mouth. He feels Nero’s hands wind around his shoulders, the boy’s blunt nails raking harshly down Dante’s clothed back as he desperately tries to find something to hold onto for purchase. 

Dante breaks the kiss, burying his face into Nero’s neck and sucking a dark mark into the pale skin beneath him, eager to mark Nero as his own, and the enthusiastic response the motion draws from the kid makes Dante thrust into him harder.

His desk has certainly seen a lot in its time, but Dante thinks it’s a miracle that the wood doesn’t splinter underneath Nero, given how forcefully Dante is fucking him against the furniture. He’s definitely leaving bruises on Nero’s back, at the very least, but Nero definitely doesn’t seem to care about that, too desperate to have more of Dante to feel the pain.

It’s easy enough to tell when Nero approaches the edge, his noises becoming increasingly high-pitched and needy, and when Dante pushes particularly hard against his prostate, he tightens up around Dante, clinging to him harder and crying into his shoulder as he comes. His body practically milks Dante’s cock with the way it squeezes around him, and Dante barely holds out long enough to fuck Nero to the point of overstimulated tears before he finishes as well, feeling the condom fill up around him.

He stays buried within Nero for a moment longer, breathing out heavily and lapping idly at the bite he’d put on Nero’s shoulder somewhere along the line, rubbing his hands against the soft skin of Nero’s sides, mostly just wanting to feel more of the kid. He has no idea if Nero will ever let him in this close ever again, so he might as well take full advantage of the situation while he still can.

Eventually, though, Nero mumbles something incoherent, likely to convey his discomfort, so Dante presses another kiss to his shoulder before pulling out, tying off the condom and tossing it into the nearby wastebasket.

As he looks down, he belatedly realizes that not undressing was probably a mistake--while his beloved coat is untouched, there’s a very obvious white stain on his shirt. Dante can’t say he particularly minds, though. Nero’s the one who does all the laundry anyway.

Still, it’s a bit uncomfortable when he feels the fabric sticking to his skin, so he steps away from the desk, stripping off his coat and reaching for the hem of the shirt to peel it off. The motion blocks his vision so that he doesn’t feel the hard shove to his chest, and he’s suddenly being pushed roughly into his office chair, a warm weight dropping on top of him a second later as Nero climbs into his lap.

“I  _ said, _ you’re not done!”

Dante’s mind blanks in surprise as he stares at Nero, taking a very slow inventory of the situation. 

The circumstances feel quite familiar, with him shirtless in his chair and an almost unclothed half-rabbit Nero in his lap, except this time Nero is the one squirming on top of him with clear arousal, his fingers already groping anxiously at his tail.

_ Oh. _

Either Nero’s refractory period is freakishly fast, even more so than Dante’s ever was, or it’s the curse taking hold of his body, fully in effect now that Dante has indulged in it. Whatever the reason, Dante needs to act quickly.

“Woah, wait--wait, kid,” he steadies his hands on Nero’s shoulders, trying to get the boy to look at him, and Nero glares at him through his still teary eyes, the impatience clear in his expression.

“I definitely appreciate the sentiment, but you’re gonna have to give me a minute. Or ten.”

Dante’s always had superhuman stamina, thanks to his demonic heritage, but he was admittedly past his sexual prime at the age of thirty-eight, and couldn’t quite get it up again as fast as he used to. Even the sight of Nero in his lap, with the boy’s white button-up shirt hanging loosely off of one of his shoulders and the hem of the fabric riding teasingly up around his thighs isn’t capable of making him hard again, despite the arousal he feels just from looking at the kid.

_ “What?” _ Nero hisses out, his tone angry but his expression desperate as he begins to grind himself in Dante’s lap, and Dante is forced to grab Nero’s hips to get him to stay still, hissing out as the curve of Nero’s ass brushes against his sensitive cock.

“But I--you  _ bastard, _ you--!”

The deeply unhappy look on Nero’s face is hardly one that Dante wants to see, and he hurries to cup the back of the kid’s head, tangling his fingers in Nero’s fluffy hair and pressing the boy’s face into his chest.

“Relax--I can still help you out.”

With how oversensitive the boy still is, Dante doubts that it’ll be very hard to get him off again, and he slips two fingers easily into Nero, the kid’s entrance still relatively loose and wet from their previous activities. 

Nero buries his face into Dante’s shoulder with a muffled whimper, his hands coming up to cling at Dante’s arms, and Dante chuckles fondly, moving the hand in Nero’s hair down to his ass, gently squeezing Nero’s fluffy tail between his fingers. He’s careful to shift Nero so that most of his weight is on Dante’s thigh, so that when Nero inevitably grinds down into Dante’s fingers, he isn’t accidentally stimulating Dante’s dick before he’s quite ready for it.

He doesn’t need contact to get hard again, because Nero’s breathy moans right into his ear and the delightfully blissed-out look on his face as Dante pets at his inner walls are more than enough to awaken Dante’s arousal after the appropriate amount of time has passed. In fact, by the time Nero comes again, right onto Dante’s bare abdomen, Dante is fully up and ready to go.

Nero pries his face away from Dante’s shoulder when he feels Dante shift underneath him, and before Dante can even say anything, the kid is already eagerly squirming on top of him, maneuvering himself until he’s positioned right above Dante’s cock.

“So that’s how you want to do it, huh? Getting pretty brave,” Dante teases, but Nero looks too focused on his task to pay much attention to him, biting cutely on his lip as he tries to line up Dante’s dick with his hole.

Dante puts his hands on Nero’s hips to help stabilize him, and groans when Nero sinks down properly on him, taking him all the way in with more practiced ease this time. 

Once he’s seated all the way inside Nero, he notices something quite different. He has absolutely no fucking idea how he missed it before, maybe too distracted by the feeling of Nero around him or their position had made it difficult to see, but now the bulge in Nero’s stomach, obviously left by his own cock inside of the kid, is glaringly obvious. 

Holy  _ fuck. _

The kid can’t even keep him all the way in with the difference in their size, and the thought of Nero pushing his body to its actual physical limits in order to take him is one of the hottest fucking things Dante’s experienced in his long sexual career.

Nero follows his gaze, laying an experimental hand on top of the bump, and Dante grunts at the sensation, unintentionally bucking up into Nero, jolting the boy on top of him with a yelp.

Dante peers carefully at Nero’s face, just to make sure that the kid’s okay, but is more than a little startled to see the tiny, almost  _ proud  _ smile on Nero’s face as he looks down at his stomach.

Dante fucking  _ loves  _ this kid.

No matter how Nero feels about him, even if Dante is essentially just a way to get off for him, Dante is stuck loving this kid for quite possibly the rest of his life.

He doesn’t hesitate to show it, curving a hand around the back of Nero’s neck and pulling him forward, kissing him with an open-mouthed tenderness that Nero surprisingly reciprocates, tightening up around him as leans further into Dante’s body.

Nero presses his forehead against Dante’s in a rare moment of clarity his breath warm against Dante’s face and his long lashes brushing against Dante’s skin.

“...thank you, Dante,” he mumbles so quietly that Dante wouldn’t have heard it, had they not been so close together, his cheeks flushing pink with embarrassment. 

Dante smirks, returning his hands to Nero’s hips.

“Anytime, kid.”

Nero is more in charge this time around, evidently filled with much more energy than Dante is, and the kid rides his cock with amazing enthusiasm. For his part, Dante bucks up into him to match his movements, relishing in the especially loud noises he pulls from Nero whenever he meets the boy’s body in just the right way.

Nero himself is a pretty quick study, having already figured out how to clench down on Dante in particular moments in a way that makes Dante muffle his deep groans into the crook of Nero’s neck, sucking and biting more marks into his delicate skin.

There’s no condom separating him from the feeling of Nero’s inner walls this time, the kid having jumped on him too quickly for him to even have gotten another one out, but Nero definitely doesn’t seem to mind. He seems rather pleased, actually, when Dante comes inside of him, his leavings already starting to leak out of Nero, even with his dick still inside of the kid. Nero milks him for all he’s worth and then some, continuing to wiggle and shift his own hips on top of him for any kind of friction he can get. 

Dante’s pretty known for being fairly insatiable himself, but Nero with the rabbit-curse on him takes things to a new level, and what is effectively Nero’s  _ heat  _ continues on for longer than Dante could have predicted. He does his best to keep up, but eventually, he can feel his inhuman stamina flagging, and just keeps Nero in his lap to conserve his energy, letting the kid do all the work as he bounces himself on his cock. 

“Jesus,” he chuckles breathlessly, staring dazedly up at the ceiling, the sensations of Nero around his entirely too-sensitive dick going straight to his brain in a numbing sort of buzz.

“Didn’t know you had all this in you.” 

Nero looks absolutely wrecked on top of him, his face damp with tears of pleasure and his rumpled shirt fully exposing the bites and dark marks that Dante has left on his body, white fluid leaking freely from his hole, more and more of Dante’s seed being pushed wetly out every time Nero works himself onto his cock.

“Getting ready....to nap, old man?” Nero pants out, his voice sounding far more lucid than before, and when Dante looks properly into his face, Nero’s eyes are clear, the haze of lust lifted from his baby blue irises. 

The rabbit ears and tail are still very much there, but Nero’s half-rabbit libido seems to have been sated, at least for now.

“Looks like I can beat you at something after all.”

Nero’s body clearly trembles with exhaustion, but he still offers up a sly smile at Dante, his lips curling upwards with the challenge.

What a punk.

Dante sits up properly, gripping at Nero’s waist again and slamming him back down onto his cock, unable to resist putting the boy in his place.

“Not in a million years, kid.”

He fucks Nero with a special kind of slowness this time, and even though Nero is still in his lap, he seems too tired to do much more than cling to Dante and mewl helplessly, his body shuddering as Dante thrusts up into him. 

“You’re so good, baby boy,” Dante finds himself murmuring praises softly into one of Nero’s long rabbit ears, giving it a slow stroke, his touch tender and laced with all the affection that he feels for Nero in this moment.

“Such a cute little bunny, and all just for me.”

Nero whines into his shoulder, a noise that could be either an agreement or a complaint, and Dante reaches down to grope at the boy’s tail again.

“Come for me, Nero,” he growls softly, his lips brushing gently against a floppy ear. 

He isn’t quite sure what happens after that--he’s distantly aware of Nero’s hole tightening around him, and of emptying himself inside of Nero, but after that it’s a mostly vague blur, his body having finally reached its physical limit of what it’ll allow him to do.

He thinks Nero squirms off of him, curling up in his lap and against his chest, something very fluffy brushing against his bare skin, and a smile touches the corners of his lips, his eyes slipping shut as he leans his head back into the chair.

“Love you, kid,” he manages to say, motivated by the warm, fluttering feeling that floats up in the pit of his stomach.

He doesn’t know what Nero’s response is--if the boy responds at all--unconsciousness washing over him in a heavy wave, warm and fluffy like a blanket.

Or like a rabbit, perhaps.

* * *

 

 

Dante has a burning headache when he wakes up to the sound of what sounds vaguely like running water. It’s bad enough that he can’t even bring himself to open his eyes, his lids unusually heavy, and when he tries to shift in place in order to get some sort of physical sense of his bearings, his thigh muscles burn with an unnatural soreness.

At first, he thinks he’s hungover, which is definitely unusual given his demonic metabolism, but not exactly impossible. If he’d had a rough enough night, it’s not too far out to imagine that he could have gotten himself shitfaced enough to be hungover, especially given his miserable situation with Nero.

Wait. Nero.

Dante forces his eyes open, groaning as the sunlight abuses his poor vision, and, when he’s finally blinked the black spots away, he comes face to face with Nero, looking very, completely human, free of any physical bunny-like attributes.

“You’re awake,” Nero says, somewhat unnecessarily, an uncertain and hesitant look on his face as he cradles what appears to be a glass full of pink, creamy looking liquid close to his chest.

Dante very slowly feels his senses starting to come back to himself, and dimly realizes that he’s laying on his own bed again, wearing absolutely nothing underneath his bedsheets. He sits up carefully, making sure not to let the sheet covering him drop too far down--despite their very recent coupling, he doubts that Nero would take well to getting a faceful of him without warning.

“And you’re not a rabbit anymore. What time is it, kid?”

Nero seems to flounder momentarily at his comment, staring at him incredulously for several long seconds before shoving the glass into his hands.

“Drink that,” he commands, folding his arms over his chest now that his hands are free. Dante notes that the kid is wearing one of his shirts now, and it’s definitely a good look on him. 

“It’s like, three in the afternoon. You slept for a whole day. So not too out of character for you.”

The kid’s tone is as snappish as usual, but it’s near impossible to miss the note of concern clearly hidden underneath. Nero had obviously woken up earlier than Dante had, and, having been a virgin prior to this, probably assumed something had gone wrong for Dante to still be asleep for so long. 

He obediently takes a sip from the glass, the liquid tasting somewhat like a less sweet strawberry milkshake.

“Huh. You went out and bought strawberry milk just for me?” Dante raises a brow and grins at the kid, honestly touched by the gesture.

An expression of hastily constructed denial settles onto the boy’s face, and Nero runs his hands through his bangs, tugging them downwards as a flush creeps up his cheeks.

“It was--it was already in the fridge, okay?”

As little attention as Dante pays to the groceries and any food that isn’t pizza, he knows for almost a certain fact that they did not, in fact, have strawberry milk pre-existing in the fridge. He hides his smile behind his glass, debating whether to push forward and fully embarrass the kid further, but he thinks that Nero probably deserves a break after everything he’s been through, and wisely decides not to point it out further.

Nero seems to be examining out of the corner of his eye with an equal amount of intensity, trying his hardest not to squirm in place, and Dante chuckles, moving part of the blanket beside him away and patting the spot next to him.

“You feel like getting comfortable?”

The boy gives him another one of those long, lost looks, before maneuvering himself to sit next to Dante, not quite touching his body. Dante decides to take initiative on his own, wrapping an arm around the kid and pulling him closer. He keeps his grip loose enough so that if Nero wants to protest or push him away, he certainly can.

Nero lets out a huff and ducks his head, clearly flustered at being so close to him again, but he doesn’t object otherwise, and in fact seems perfectly happy to cuddle up to Dante in a way he probably thought was subtle.

“So...maybe we should talk,” Dante offers after a silence, leaning over to set the glass on his bedside drawer. 

He feels the way Nero tenses against him, starting to automatically go on the defensive, and he musters up as serious an expression as he can, looking gently down at Nero.

“What’s there to talk about? The stupid rabbit curse is gone. So, good. I...thanks for helping.”

“Hm.”

Dante moves slowly enough so that Nero can stop him if he needs to, gently carding his fingers through the back of Nero’s fluffy hair, tilting the boy’s face up. When Nero still doesn’t react, Dante leans down, pressing his lips tenderly against his, a slow, gentle kiss that they hadn’t had the time for with everything they were doing earlier.’

Nero pushes back into him, his hands coming up to grip lightly at Dante’s arms as Dante deepens the kiss pushing Nero slightly back into the pillows before breaking away.

“Good talk,” Dante says happily, as Nero flushes, slightly breathless from the kiss.

“I...yeah.”

Dante leans back into the pillows, satisfied with this outcome, and he keeps up his gentle petting of Nero’s head, a part of him vaguely missing the soft bunny ears. He hears Nero make a soft, pleased sounding noise before the boy suddenly falls forward, flopping bonelessly onto his chest, and the movement is so abrupt that Dante worries that he’s hurt the kid.

One look at the tiny, immensely pleased smile on the kid’s face has him thinking otherwise, though, and Dante vaguely recalls a memory from his childhood, when he and Vergil had found a particularly friendly wild rabbit who had the tendency to simply fall over when it was especially happy.

Cute.

“You sure you’re still not cursed?” Dante questions, unable to help the smugness that he feels. Nero is just too adorable to tease, his feisty reactions always having the side effect of making him look extremely fluffy in Dante’s eyes.

“This is pretty rabbity behavior right here--although, I guess you were pretty prone to acting like this before, too.”

“What the  _ fuck,” _ Nero hisses out, glaring up at Dante, but Dante notes that Nero doesn’t move off of him, content with laying stationary on his bare chest. 

Dante chuckles, unable to resist another pet to Nero’s soft hair before resting his arm around Nero’s lower half, which is probably still sore from all the abuse they’d collectively heaped onto it.

After a pause, Nero turns his face into Dante’s chest and mumbles something barely audible out, too soft for Dante to catch, and he raises a brow, tightening his grip around Nero as he looks down.

“What was that?”

Nero is clearly embarrassed, the pink flush on his cheeks having deepened to a bright red.

“Maybe  _ you  _ should grow another pair of ears next time! I  _ said _ ...I...I love you too.”

The last part of Nero’s sentence is forced out so quickly that the words are hard to pick out from one another, but Dante gets the message anyway, unable to resist the laugh that bubbles up from his chest, feeling very pleasantly warm inside. The kid’s suffered enough by now, so he won’t ask Nero to repeat it, as much as he wants to hear it again.

“Good to know.”

Nero seems content with Dante’s response, settling back down into their cuddle, and they have another moment of quiet peace before Dante is compelled to break the silence again.

“I’ll really miss that tail of yours.”

“I won’t,” Nero grumbles, his fluffy strands of hair tickling against Dante’s skin as he shifts on top of him.

“Besides, I don’t think you could handle another round like that, old man. Thought you were about to cry at the end of it.”

“Well, sure, but not as hard as you did.”

Nero makes an outraged squawk, smacking his hand against Dante’s chest without much force behind the blow, as if he was still afraid of actually hurting Dante despite Dante being far bigger than him. Dante is highly reminded of rabbit Nero attempting to do chastise him by doing the same thing, batting against him with his tiny paws, and the kid is just too cute--he really can’t help but pull Nero upwards into another kiss.

“Your head’s getting way too big. One of these days you’re gonna squash me underneath your giant-ass ego,” Nero grumbles at him when they break apart, still flustered from Dante’s teasing.

Bratty as always--that’s his Nero, alright.

The only warning that Nero gets is the amused, careful noise from Dante before he flips the both of them over, so that Nero is underneath him, facing upwards into Dante’s smirk.

“You want to test that, kid?”

“See, you’re already doing it, you giant lump! You better stop eating so much fucking pizza!”

“What, and eat lettuce all the time? Hey, you’re the rabbit, not me.”

Nero has apparently reached his limit with this, and pushes Dante bodily off of him, grabbing a pillow and shoving it lightly into Dante’s face before covering his own expression with both of his hands, sinking into the mattress. 

“You know you love me,” Dante grins, gently removing the pillow from his face.

“Ugh. Unfortunately.”

About two minutes later, Dante doesn’t even have to speak or move before Nero has cuddled back up to him, curling up in the crook of his body.

“I’m going back to sleep. I spent too long waiting around on your lazy ass to wake up.” 

“Sure,” Dante indulges the boy agreeably, resting one of his hands gently in Nero’s hair, wrapping his other arm around the kid’s waist.

He’s feeling pretty tired himself, despite only just having woken up, but spares at least enough energy to watch Nero’s breathing even out, his soft hair rustling with every gentle exhale. Careful not to wake Nero, Dante leans his head down, pressing a tender kiss to the boy’s forehead, smiling softly when Nero mumbles sleepily and nestles up further against him.

Fluffy, but this time definitely not a problem.

Dante can live with that.

**Author's Note:**

> TWITTER....if u wish to see more cursed self-indulgent nero propaganda  
> https://twitter.com/moolktea


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